Danielle Steel - Wings

“I don't think he will,” she said gloomily, as they went back out into the rain to meet her father in his office. And then, just before they reached it, soaked again, she stopped and looked at him with a smile that melted his very soul. He didn't want to feel that way with her, and it startled him. But they had been through a lot that evening, and it had brought them closer together.

‘Thanks, Nick.”

“Don't mention it. And I mean that.” Her father would have strangled him for giving her lessons. He tousled her wet hair then, and walked her into her father's office. Chris was looking shaken and gray, and his father had just given him a nip of brandy.

“You okay, Cass?” Pat glanced at her, but saw that she looked none the worse for wear, unlike her brother. But the responsibility had been his after all, and the hard part of landing back at the airport, or at least that was what her father thought, and Chris hadn't told him any different.

“I'm okay, Dad,” she assured him.

“You're a brave girl,” he said admiringly, but not admiring enough. It was Nick who had understood. Nick who had agreed to give her what she had always dreamed of. Her dream come true, and she was suddenly glad she had gone up in the storm, even if she had taken a hell of a chance. Maybe in the end, it had been worth it.

Pat drove Chris and Cassie home, and their mother was waiting for them. As soon as they sat down to dinner, her father told Oona the whole story. Or what he thought was the whole story, of how incredible Chris had been, how he had flown by sheer wit and nerve, and after the initial foolishness of going up in the storm, had brought them home safely. Their father was so proud of him, and Chris said nothing at all. He just went to his room, and lay on his bed and cried, with the door closed.

Cassie went in to see him after a while. She knocked for a long time, and he finally let her in, with a look that combined anguish and fury.

“What do you want?”

‘To tell you I'm sorry I scared you… and almost got us killed. I'm sorry, Chris. I shouldn't have done it.” She could afford to be magnanimous now, now that Nick had agreed to give her what she had always wanted.

“I'm never going up in a plane with you again,” he said ominously, glaring at her like a much younger brother who had been used and betrayed by a wilier older sister.

“You don't have to,” she said quietly, sitting on the edge of his bed as he stared at her.

“You're giving up flying?” That he'd never believe.

“Maybe… for now…” She shrugged, as though it didn't matter to her, but he knew her better.

“I don't believe you.”

“I'll see. It doesn't matter now. I just wanted to tell you I was sorry.”

“You should be,” he fired at her, and then he backed down, and reached out and touched her arm. “Thanks though… for saving our asses up there. I really thought we were done for.”

“So did I,” she grinned excitedly at him. “I really thought for a while there it was over.” And then she giggled.

“You lunatic,” and then, admiringly, “you're a hell of a pilot, Cass. You gotta learn right one day, and not all this sneaky stuff behind Dad's back. He's got to let you fly. You're ten times the pilot I'll ever be. I'll bet you're as good as he is.”

“I doubt that, but you'll be okay. You're a good straightforward pilot, Chris. Just stay out of the tough stuff.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he grinned at her, no longer wanting to kill her. “I'll remind you of that, next time you offer to take me up and kill me.”

“I won't, for a while,” she said angelically, but he knew her better.

“What's that all about? You're up to something, Cass.”

“No, I'm not. I'm going to behave… for a while anyway…”

“Lord help us. Just let me know when you decide to go berserk again. I'll be sure to stay away from the airport. Maybe you ought to do that for a while too. I swear, those fumes have made you crazy.”

“Maybe so,” she said dreamily. But it was more than that, and she knew it. She had those fumes in her blood, her bones, and she knew more than ever that she would never escape them.

Bobby Strong came by after dinner that night, and he was horrified when he heard her father's tale, and furious with Chris a little later when he saw him.

“The next time you take my girl up and almost kill her, you'll have to answer to me,” he said, much to Chris's and Cassie's astonishment. “That was a dumb thing to do and you know it.” Chris would have liked to tell him Cassie wanted to, he would have liked to tell him a lot of things, but of course he couldn't.

“Yeah, sure,” her younger brother mumbled vaguely as he went back to his room. They were all nuts. Bobby, Cass, his father, Nick. None of them knew the truth, none of them knew who was to blame and who wasn't. His father thought he was a criminal, and Cassie had them all bamboozled. But only Cassie knew the truth about that, and Nick, now that he had promised to give her lessons.

Bobby lectured her that night on how dangerous flying was, how useless, and how foolish; he told her that all the men involved in it were immature, and they were just playing like children. He hoped she had learned a lesson that night, and that she would be more reasonable in the future about hanging around the airport. He expected it of her, he explained. How could she expect to have any kind of future at all if she spent her life covered in grease and oil, and was willing to risk her life on a wild adventure with her brother? Besides, she was a girl, and it wasn't proper.

She tried to make herself agree with him, because she knew he meant well. But she was relieved when he left. And all she could think of that night, as she lay in bed listening to the rain, was what Nick had promised her, and how soon they would start flying together. She could hardly wait. She lay awake for hours, thinking about it, and remembering the feeling of the wind on her face, as she dashed beneath the clouds in the Jenny, looking for the edge, waiting to escape, just before they hit the ground, and then soaring free again, shearing the top of the trees, and then coming in safely. It had been an extraordinary day, and she knew that no matter what anyone said to her about how dangerous or improper it was, she would never give it up. Not for any of them. She just couldn't.

4

Three days after the storm that eventually turned into a tornado, ten miles away in Blandinsville, Cassie got up and did her chores and when she left the house, she told her mother she was going to the library, and then to meet a friend from school who had married that spring, and was expecting a baby. And after that she'd stop by the airport. She had packed an apple and a sandwich in a paper bag, and she had taken a dollar from her savings and hidden it in her pocket. She wasn't sure how much the bus fare would be, but she wanted to be sure she had enough to get to Prairie City. She had promised to meet Nick there at noon, and as she walked toward the bus terminal downtown in the summer sun, she was sorry she hadn't worn a hat. But she knew that if she had, her mother would have suspected something. She never wore one.

As she walked along, she looked like a long, lanky girl, going off to meet friends. She looked her age, but was extraordinarily lovely. She was even prettier than her mother had been, she was taller and thinner, and she had an even more impressive figure. But her looks were something that Cassie never thought about. Looks were something for other girls, who had nothing else in their heads, or girls like her sisters who wanted to get married and have babies. She knew she wanted children one day, or at least she thought she did, but there were so many other things she wanted first, things she would probably never have, like excitement and freedom and flying. She loved reading stories about women pilots, and she read everything she could about Amelia Earhart and Jackie Cochran. She'd read Lindbergh's book We, about his Atlantic solo in 1927, and his wife's book North to the Orient the year before when it came out, and Earhart's book, The Fun of It . All the women involved in aviation were her heroes. She often wondered why they could do what she could only dream of. But maybe now with Nick helping her… just maybe… if she could just fly… if she could just take off as she had the other day with Chris, and soar lazily into the sky forever.